Google TV Taking On Apple TV With Planned New Update Announcements

Seems like everyone’s playing catch up lately, right? First Microsoft’s Surface tablet is announced, and now Google TV looks like it’s getting an update that’s sure to put a little heat on Apple’s own hobby initiative.

Apple refrained from mentioning its TV product during the World Wide Developer Conference last week. According to Fox News, an announcement about an update to Google TV is coming at Google’s own developer conference this week, Google I/O. What will it include, we wonder?

Apparently, one of the demos scheduled this week is planned to show how Google TV will combine listings, Netflix, and DVR capabilities in one Google-flavored place. Users will be able to use a smartphone app (any guess as to what OS it will be for?) to access and play the shows.

Other manufacturers plan to get users streaming their videos from Android-powered phones, just like AirPlay on the Apple TV/iOS ecosystem. The Google developer support pages also show some topics for conference sessions that fit right in with this new focus. Two examples include “Bring Your App to the Big Screen,” and “Command and Control in Your Living Room: Building Second Screen Apps for Google TV.”

Seems like the clash of the technology titans continue on this week. It will be interesting to see if Google can effectively match the AppleTV in terms of features and popularity, or if they might be able to leapfrog it a bit – a sure win for fans of competition.

AppleTV UI is much better and Airplay is awesome but GoogleTV has much more content.

Danrarbc

Apparently, one of the demos scheduled this week is planned to show how Google TV will combine listings, Netflix, and DVR capabilities in one Google-flavored place. Users will be able to use a smartphone app (any guess as to what OS it will be for?) to access and play the shows.

In the first sentence you just described the first update that Google TV got in December of 2010 that allowed the search to include Netflix – prior to that it included the DVR and listing search. And a smartphone app for it has been available since essentially launch – for iOS and Android. If they are enhancing functionality to allow the phone to play content from the Google TV then I imagine that is coming to both iOS and Android.

Other manufacturers plan to get users streaming their videos from Android-powered phones, just like AirPlay on the Apple TV/iOS ecosystem. The Google developer support pages also show some topics for conference sessions that fit right in with this new focus. Two examples include “Bring Your App to the Big Screen,” and “Command and Control in Your Living Room: Building Second Screen Apps for Google TV.”

You could already use DLNA streaming, but you are correct in asserting that users don’t use it as much as AirPlay – it hasn’t been that easy to use in comparison. By the way, Google TV had apps last year – indeed, both of those sessions describe existing functionality.

Seems like the clash of the technology titans continue on this week. It will be interesting to see if Google can effectively match the AppleTV in terms of features and popularity, or if they might be able to leapfrog it a bit – a sure win for fans of competition.

Google TV 2.0 last year had Apple TV’s current functionality beat last year. My guess on the ‘new’ announcement is they are upgrading it from Honeycomb to Jelly Bean – unifying all three screens Android runs on.
My first post? Yes. But this article is wrong on nearly every point.

Also, you should probably use a picture that isn’t of the 1.0 browser start screen – here’s the current video listing: